From a Warehouse to the Lord’s House: A Story from Lithuania
In 2018, Švč. Mergelės Marijos Ramintojos bažnyčia (Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Peacemaker) in Vilnius, Lithuania, started its first Alpha. Today, their Alphas are so fruitful that over 60% of participants identify as unchurched — and even as they run the course twice a year, they still need to put people on a waitlist.
But the history of this church is much older and more convoluted than their present-day evangelistic fruitfulness would suggest.
“I Felt Like the Lost Sheep”: A Story from the USA
In 2021, Salvador returned to his childhood home in Chicago, a broken man. His partner and the mother of his children had kicked him out of their home in Las Vegas. Addiction and a life of fast living had brought his world crashing down on him.
As a child, Sal had felt a strong connection to God. A cradle Catholic, he was involved in youth retreats at his parish and felt drawn to the Bible. But as a teen, he was afraid to be known in school as the one who chose God fully: “here in Chicago, I mean growing up, it was not easy… it was kind of rough.” At that time, the priests in the parish were Missionary Servants of the Word from Mexico. “All these teachings were with the Bible… I was in love with that.” But it caused a tension within him – it didn’t fit with the persona he wore with his friends. His Pastor challenged him: “either you’re hot or you’re cold, you cannot be in between.”
So, as a teen, in his rebellion, in his pain, in searching for his identity and worth, he decided “I’ll be cold.” By the time he was 17 he was far from the Church and moved to Sin City. “I felt like the lost sheep.”
Joyful Renewal: A Story From the Netherlands
Ordained only one year ago, Father Erik is at St. Titus Brandsma in Wageningen, an amalgamated parish (collapsed from 11 churches down to six) in the Netherlands – a country all too familiar with parish decline.
But while in seminary, this young priest read Divine Renovation: Bringing your parish from maintenance to mission, and attended last year’s Missionary Parish Conference in the Netherlands and was determined to enter the priesthood already focused on mission.
Despite entering a dire situation in his region, he is incredibly joyful! He says, “The priesthood brings this happiness to my life.” Through Divine Renovation, he sees the path forward and, with his Pastor, is taking action. They are relying on the Holy Spirit to transform a seemingly hopeless situation to one teeming with possibility.
Finding a Way Forward: A Story From Slovenia
Slovenian priest Father Simon Potnik went to Halifax for the DR18 conference looking for a new way forward in parish renewal. There he saw “for the first time there was a way. The path that I believed in, the logic, was there.” The Divine Renovation principles made sense and offered him hope.
Catalyst for Change: A Focus on Evangelization
A group from St. Agnes Parish in Thunder Bay is currently helping run an Alpha… in another Parish. What started as a small group attending DR 2016 in Halifax has grown into a full blown parish renewal that is now spilling over into neighbouring parishes in their city. “We are being the catalyst to bring that into the city… the real dream would be to see our whole diocese on fire.”
